from the hands of the diligent girl, what will come of that?" Large, fine cows." "Yes; and these fill the dairy with milk, and butter, and cheese, on which the farmer's children grow strong and rosy; while the flocks and herds frolic on the green meadows, and rejoice in the goodness of God, who made them and us, and who sees fit to use the active, dutiful servant as his instrument in nourishing them. What, boy! You refuse to drive home these noble animals, to whom we all owe so much. My town-boys here know better about farmer's work than you seem to do. Stand up, boys, and sing our fine old song in praise of the country. That will probably make our friend feel ashamed of his foolish pride!" The children then sang Falk's song: Oh, a shepherd's life for me!" "Well, did you understand that? Who was Moses?" "A man of God." "Yes; and so was David, who wrote the psalms that you learn by heart. You do not seem to me likely to become a David, and compose psalms and hymns; and yet you are ashamed of useful work that holy men of God did as a matter of course. Away with you! You are such a simpleton as not to know the worth of a good servant and of an earthly flock; so, how could Christ, the Lord of heaven, trust his sheep to you, or make you one of his servants!"

It is worthy of notice, that this reception, cutting as it was, did not repel the boy.

The liberty accorded by Falk to his young people proved a strong bond of union between them. "We forge," said he "all our fetters from within, and utterly scorn those of outward application. It is written: If Christ make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' Might it not be said: 'If Christ bind you, ye shall never go astray'? Do parents lock their doors to prevent their children from running away? If that is not done at home, why should it be indispensable here? Is human nature divided against itself? Nay, verily. Christ and the Bible are right. Love alone triumphs over every obstacle,—over gates and bars, locks and drawbridges; yea, even over wicked men.”

With this confidence in the power of love, he could say to a pupil who had repeatedly run away, after reproving him for his folly, "Even God, though almighty, forces no one to be saved. Now, I may as well inform you, in case you should take a roundabout way the next time you leave us-since you seem bent upon doing so— that there are two doors to this house. Moreover, if you want to go to Frankfort, your nearest way is by Luther Street; but if bound for Leipzig, you had better go by the opposite gate. The city-gates are opened every morning at six, and shut for the night at ten; so inake your arrangements accordingly." Once more the boy ran away, but only to return with tears, never again to forsake the right way.

Falk's lessons were never dry. The love of God was always illustrated by facts from every-day life; so that the pupils were never wearied by abstract teaching. He first invented the plan-so often adopted since-of

alternating the singing of responsive hymns with the reading of Scripture. The children always sang at work, often the songs of Falk's own composition. He gave them the history of Luther in excellent rhyme in the style of Hans Sachs, interspersed with spirited songs. He often conducted his young flock to the Thuringian mountains, to afford them an opportunity of learning the gospel of the flowers of the field and the stars of heaven, and of hearing God's voice in the rushing wind and waving forest.

Falk's personal and domestic interests were completely merged in his work of love. Every event in his own family was to him a fresh incentive to devote hinself to the redemption of destitute children. In March 1819, it pleased God to take away Falk's son Edward, a promising youth of nineteen, who had just completed his studies preparatory to entering the university. The parents, overwhelmed with grief, were sitting by the corpse, when, about an hour after the death of their beloved child, a knock was heard at the door. "Oh, if thou wouldest but once more appear to us!—if thou wouldest but once more enter by this door!" cried the distracted mother, her eyes fixed on the body. Here a poor boy of about fourteen entered, saying, "Since you have had pity on so many children from our country, do not reject me. My parents died when I was seven years of age." The afflicted mother rose up, lifted her tearstained face to heaven, and exclaimed, "O God, thou art ever sending us strange children, whom we receive gladly; whilst our own thou takest away from us!" The poor boy's petition was not refused.

The bereaved parents, especially the mother, felt this new wound so severely that the physicians deemed change of scene indispensable. Falk took up his abode at the foot of the Wartburg, near Eisenach. The exquisite scenery, and still more the strengthening memories clinging around the ancient fortress overhanging their dwelling, acted beneficially on the mind of Falk and his wife. Being restored to health, they returned home in the autumn, after visiting Frankfort. For two years God saw fit to grant them a respite from domestic affliction, when, at Easter 1821, it broke forth anew; their daughter Angelica, a girl of sixteen, being taken from them. Well-practised in the petition, "Thy will be done," they did not grow weary in the work given them to do. At this period they greatly needed fresh supplies of strength.

The owner of the house where Falk had hitherto carried on his labour of love, unexpectedly gave him notice to leave, and he looked around him in vain for a suitable abode. A report was circulated in Weimar that Falk was about to remove to the ancient mansion of the Counts of Orlamünde, a deserted and dilapidated building in Luther Street. On first hearing this rumour, Falk remarked that he would not choose even to be buried there. However, when no other shelter could be found, a bright thought struck Falk; and he resolved to go to Luther Street, and, with the aid of his pupils,

restore the ruined mansion. The house was purchased. Five thousand thalers had to be paid by a certain time, and Falk was without a farthing to meet the demand; besides which, the expenses of building had to be considered.

"Trust in God, my friends!" cried Falk; "trust in God. Let the work be planned and begun in his name, and he will send us the means wherewith to carry it on." He then set to work with his usual energy, dispatching messengers with printed circulars announcing his new undertaking. These travelled through Germany and Holland, and sent home the gifts of Christian friends. Falk's own contribution, the result of literary labour, amounted to three thousand thalers.

Meanwhile the boys worked diligently at the new house. The old building was pulled down and the foundation-stone of the new house laid in 1823. Every tile on the roof, every lock, every table and chair within, was the boys' own work. When the structure was complete, there was placed over the front door a marble tablet bearing the inscription: "After the battles of Jena, Lützen, and Leipzig, the Society of Friends in Need' erected this house as a perpetual thank-offering to God."

The outward framework complete, Falk set to work with renewed vigour at the internal economy of the establishment. He was now able to keep a larger number of children than before under his own care, and exercised more vigilance than ever over their mental and spiritual development. He had much satisfaction in his pupils. Many a worthy tradesman, many an able teacher and pious pastor, had to thank Falk for saving him from destitution and making him a useful member of society.

One of Falk's pupils, Johannes Denner, tells us in his autobiography how he, a poor boy from the district between the mountains of the Rhône and the forests of Thuringia, went, impelled by a strong thirst for knowledge, to Falk in 1822. He was admitted to the Refuge, and very soon employed as Falk's amanuensis. He was afterwards sent out to collect for the institution, and finally attained the summit of his ambition-a pastoral charge in the kingdom of Würtemberg. From his autobiography we learn something of Falk's latter years. Nothing could be more amiable than the manner in which the ripe scholar, the friend of Göthe-the man of the world and distinguished savant-corresponded with this youth. His letters to his protegé abound in playful humour, as well as deep earnestness. When you reach the shores of the Baltic, and hear the murmuring of its waves," he writes, "greet them from me, and tell them that poor Johannes, who so often listened to their voice, has wiped away many a mourner's tear and stilled many a sigh since then; but has likewise wept and sighed abundantly himself."

When Denner informed Falk of his visit to the island of Rügen, where he had been much refreshed by the kindness of Christian friends, as well as deeply im

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pressed by the grandeur of Nature, he received the following answer:- My faithful Elisha (2 Kings xii.),While I tarry here on Mount Carmel, looking up to God, you have travelled as far as Rügen, and have listened to the waves of the Baltic. God keep you healthy and happy, and cause, through your endeavours, the hearts of others to beat as warmly as our own for the cause of humanity......If, when the Lord shall call me hence, whether by the whirlwind or by the still small voice, I can leave you a fragment of my mantle, I will do so with all my heart. Smite the waters therewith, and go dryshod over the seas of trouble which await all mortals here below. You write that you have to tell learned men for hours about our institution. Only be strong and very courageous: your simplicity and straightforwardness will convince them that we are in earnest here about the education of the people; and are neither hypocritical knaves nor conceited fools, but honest men, sending out others equally single-minded, whose errand is to speak the truth and do good as they have opportunity. Now, my beloved Denner, the Lord bless your going out and coming in. his grace even though your humble agency, and make you and me, and all of us, a blessing to many. He who was so gracious to shepherds and fishermen, can assuredly advance his kingdom, even through poor boys from Luther Street, if such be his holy will. What though the ungodly hiss and open their mouth wide against us; the Lord will never let us be put to shame."

May he spread the light of

When Denner was on his second journey to the Rhine and the Netherlands, Falk mentions his own declining health. "Pray for your sick father," he writes, "who lies awake many an hour, and never fails to commend you to the Divine protection." A week later: "I can neither walk, nor stand, nor sit, nor get a moment's rest at night. My appetite is gone, and at the slightest movement a thousand knives seem to stab me. They call this terrible complaint-worse by far than deathsciatica. It wastes a man to a shadow, and often bows him down till both hands touch the ground. May God, who has laid on me this heavy cross, help me to bear it with patience and calmness, to his own glory!" Then he tells, in moving language, of the comfort derived, amid his bodily anguish, from the fact that the institution was well provided for by the exertions of his young friends, whom he earnestly exhorts to prayer. "God has granted your request, my dear son," he writes, a month later. "The fiery trial is over; the agonizing pains in my bones have ceased. We shall see one another once more."

But never again did the young disciple behold his dear master on earth. The disease returned with aggravated symptoms. An abscess in his side burst, after which he felt better, till the other side became affected in the same manner. "If you would know my state for the last two months," he writes, "read Psalm cii." Nevertheless, his spirit continued strong in the power of faith

"Look around, my son," he continues, taking up his parable; we live in a great hospital, where there is no end of sighing and dying,--of leave-taking and heartbreaking. But to all this the children of this world give little heed. They resemble the thoughtless French commissaries, who, while the ground-floor echoes with the shrieks of their wounded and dying comrades, are engaged in preparations for a ball in the rooms above. Yes, dance and sing; the more riotously the better, lest those piercing cries should distract your fine nerves, exalted to the third heaven by the voluptuous dance and intoxicating draught! There, my good Denner, you have a picture of the world and its unspeakable frivolity. It is to counteract this tendency that God has called us to labour, and seen fit to make me a spectacle of misery. Blessed are they whom he conducts to glory, even through great tribulation." Falk was indeed honoured to bear a noble testimony by his sublime fortitude, nay, even his triumphant joy, in the midst of unspeakable suffering. He shared, as he tells us, the experience of Job. But he withstood the tempter, and occupied every season of temporary relief in praising God and working for the children. His pupils assembled daily around his couch for instruction, and to the last he gave all needful orders himself. He dictated to one of the boys a poem which he had composed on the destruction of the "Invincible Armada"-an event in which he had always loved to trace the finger of God.

The day before his death, he wrote the preface to the little work on Luther already alluded to. He then made his will, and desired his daughter to read it to the notary. When she came to the epitaph which he had written for his tombstone, she burst into tears, whereupon he encouraged her to proceed with her painful task, saying, "Go on, my daughter; be my own brave girl!" After the sealing of the will, he was seized with violent spasms in the chest, accompanied by great difficulty in breathing.

On the 14th of February he expressed a desire to receive the sacrament. It was administered to him by one of his most decided opponents, who ever after deeply revered his memory. The same day Falk was called to pass through the last conflict. His speech was now almost inarticulate, but occasionally a few disjointed words were audible: "God-for the people-faithChrist the end." The victory was gained, and Carl Reinthaler, who had hastened from Erfurt, and now stood at the death-bed with the widow and four children, closed the eyes of his friend in silent prayer.

Three days later, the boys of the Refuge carried the body to the family burying-place, where, on a plain monument, may still be read a brief and touching epitaph composed by Falk for himself, in which he rests his hope of salvation solely on the merits of the Redeemer.

HE future chronicler of the history of the Church will doubtless regard it as a somewhat remarkable fact, that the same epoch which has called forth some of the most vehement onslaughts of the negative school of criticism on the veracity of the sacred writings, should have likewise contributed some of the most solid additions that have, for many years, been made to the external evidences of the truth of Scripture. It can hardly be a matter of accident, that the generation which is accustomed to hear the Mosaic record superciliously alluded to by its men of science as a "grand old legend," should be provided with the exquisite and effective anecdote which the researches of Rossellini and Wilkinson, Layard and Rawlinson, have been the means of supplying. In the presence of so startling a

coincidence, it seems impossible for the devout mind to escape the conclusion that the guardian Eye, which has watched over the Church through all the vicissitudes of her chequered career, has shown equal vigilance in the preservation of the great charter of her hopes and liberties. Deeply, however, as this lesson is stamped on the history of contemporary literature, its point and cogency are apt to be lost sight of amid the multiplicity of extraneous details with which it is almost necessarily surrounded in scientific exposition. It cannot, therefore, be an altogether superfluous task for the Christian student to endeavour to gather up some of the great results which have been achieved in the department of Oriental research, and present them to the general reader in a clear and compact form. To concentrate into a focus the bright rays of light thrown upon the

hands of the Babylonians, whose empire, spring

The first great field of antiquity from which we propose to draw our illustrations of the truth of the Old Testament narrative, is that interesting and ancient region which, by the successful decipherment of one of its most venerable legends, has recently called to itself the attention of all classes of intelligent men. The Chaldæan monarchy was founded by the genius and prowess of Nimrod, and raised by him and his successors to the first rank among the great powers of the early world. Situated in the lower portion of the Mesopotamian valley, it extended, speaking generally, from about the 34th parallel of latitude on the north, to the head of the Persian Gulf on the south, and from the Euphrates to the Tigris on the east and west. The district is supposed to have been formed by the alluvial deposits of the two great rivers which girdle it on both sides; and everything connected with the natural features of the country bears out the received account of its origin. To the eye of the traveller, the landscape presents a vast, bare, unbroken plain, with little to relieve its dull monotony. The soil was, and still is, characterized by a degree of fertility which, but for the concurrent testimony of both ancient and modern writers, must appear almost incredible. The exuberance of the wheat-plant in olden times, we are told, was such, that on a well cultivated farm the average yield of the crop was a hundred and fifty fold; whilst in special circumstances it even ranged as high as two hundred fold. It was in the choicest portion of this productive region that "the mighty hunter" laid, in the form of a tetrarchy, the foundations of a kingdom which flourished from the twentythird to about the close of the sixteenth century before the Christian era. About the period of the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the Chaldæan monarchy, after an existence of seven centuries, fell before the hordes of Arabs who swarmed in from the desert on its western frontier. By them the country was held for a shorter period, until it was finally absorbed by Assyria; and when, in the course of ages, this latter power crumbled to pieces in its turn, the sceptre passed into the

included the primitive kingdom, and extended far beyond it.

Long, however, before the Babylonian monarchs rose to power in the land, the distinctive national peculiarities of the early Chaldæans had been almost entirely obliterated. The repeated conquest of the country by alien races gradually swept away the Ethiopic form of speech, which had been spoken by the primitive colonists; and under the Assyrian rule the old language fell so completely into disuse, that it came in course of time to be studied by the learned simply as a literary curiosity. The Chaldæan legends which were embodied in this extinct tongue, replete as they were with the lore of a primeval civilization, were sought out and studied by the literati of Nineveh ; and when the victorious monarchs brought away portions of them from their original resting-place to the Assyrian capital, they were first copied and translated by scholars, and then deposited in the archives of the royal palace, where the kindly dust of twenty-five centuries has preserved them substantially intact down to the present time. This, at least, is the actual history of the monumental fragment recently discovered in the Assyrian department of the British Museum. A considerable number of clay tablets, covered with inscriptions, had been discovered in the course of excavations made some fifteen years ago in the ruins of the palace at Nineveh; and among them was a series of legends, one of which was found, when carefully sorted and examined, to furnish a full account of the Deluge. The original text of the inscription was brought, according to the statement of the tablets, from the city of Erech, but has long since perished. Translations of it, however, had been made from time to time by Assyrian scholars; and it is fragments of three of these, belonging to the comparatively recent period of King Assurbanipal, who flourished somewhere about 660 B.C., that have now been recovered.

The legend consists of twelve cantos, or tablets, each of which contains a portion of the story of a monarch called Izdubar, who is supposed to have belonged to the mythical period of Chaldæan history. Izdubar, after reaching the highest